Chimera

The street glowed and shown as if the entire city was bathed in moonlight. The city lay still, quiet, unmoving, not even nature dared to move within the city. I stood alone, unarmed and vulnerable in the middle of the street. I could feel that I was not alone, though nothing moved, though nothing made a sound, I was aware that death was all around me. Death had consumed my city; I could see it moving, growing, hungering for me, its claws closing in on me. G's surrounded me on all sides. They stood silently watching me, their mouths silently calling to me, speaking my name with lifeless voices and fetid breath. They began to close on me, slowly suffocating me, stealing my oxygen.  Their screams for hunger were deafening, my ears rang and my feet moved faster than I had ever thought possible.

Pushing past the ghouls closest to me, I could feel their hands reaching for me, scratching, and tearing at my clothes. My lungs began to burn as I tried to put distance between me and the ghouls. As I ran I could see the entire city's inhabitants converge on me, from every door, every window, the entire world seemed to close around me. The street began to close up, houses began to move around me, I could hear the doors and windows break. Closing in on me the dead reached and grabbed for my body, their teeth closing and gnashing, grinding. My arm burned, and I turned to see a ghoul biting into my forearm, I spun around slamming my fist into its dead skull, breaking my self free, I could feel another tear, another bite, another hand grabbing me. The snarls, howling, the breaking wood consumed all I could hear.

As my eyes opened I could feel the sting of sweat, my head throbbed, and my body burned, in my brief consciousness, all I could see from the couch was the G standing in the living room. 

Mistakes...

I was sure I had lost him.  And perhaps I deserved to, after the mistakes I made... 

Much of what transpired after the zombie ambush out on the street is foggy at best.

After my initial wave of panic had passed, something inside me had clicked..something emotionless...robotic...careless...

I only remember it in flashes...
I remember basically leaping down the apartment barricade...running full speed to the nearby Rite-Aid...items being grabbed and quickly thrown to the side or stashed into my backpack as I frantically searched each aisle.  In the pharmacy, I remember just sweeping medicine bottles and tubes off the shelves into my bag, no looking, no considerations...  By the time I made it back to the apartment, Resef was unconscious.

It wasn't until I had applied a random assortment of topical creams and antibiotic gels to his wound that I noticed myself getting very lightheaded and dizzy.  As I started to clean up after the haphazard medical procedure I realized there was a trail of blood leading to a large pool of blood next to Resef.  I looked down at my leg to see a large gash resulting from carelessly sneaking into a half-way boarded-up window at the Rite-Aid.  Everything went black after that...

The next thing I remember is waking up to wails and moans coming from outside.  I quickly found Resef in the dim light of dusk.  I could see that he was breathing, but still asleep...his wound slightly green, but improved.  My body was weak from blood loss.  I staggered upwards, swaying with each step as I clumsily made my way to the deck.  Below me appeared the largest gang of Gs I've ever seen at our complex.  They had caught the scent of my blood from my trip to the Rite-Aid and were now clawing at our barricade.

I hadn't been thinking when I had made that trip...I didn't even remember if I had properly secured the barricade.  As if in answer to my terrified thoughts, a Walker swiftly pummeled his way through the barricade, slowly making his way toward me, leading the way for the other monsters...

Zombie First-Aid?!

For what seemed hours we stared at each other. Still in shock from the scene on the street- this was just too much.

No one dared touch it. When he finally did reach for it, I screeched incomprehensible words of panic at him.

I sat there, unmoving like a statue. I couldn't even blink. Bodily functions like that, breathing even, were put on pause. Thoughts of life without him raced through my mind...there was simply no way I would go on with out him. My eyes moved to my rifle...crazy thoughts flooded my mind. Thoughts I pushed to the back of my mind...we had always promised each other we would keep going, no matter what. We wouldn't take the easy way out- we had promised each other...

I suddenly became aware of a voice yelling at me-demanding action, "Do you have a better idea, then?!".

What the hell are you supposed to do when infected Zombie bone shrapnel is lodged in your boyfriend's leg?

I'd had jobs in the past that required first-aid and CPR training, but since I never had to implement the skills we had been taught, I quickly forgot them. Besides, I don't remember being taught what to do in a Zombie apocalypse scenario. Would the basics apply here? And why the hell didn't it occur to us before to stock up on first-aid supplies?!

Collateral Damage

    The group of Gs turned in unison as if they were of one mind. Time seemed to stand still as my heart raced, rose, stiffening my throat. In a flash without hesitation they arose from the ground where they were kneeling. Their mouths opened wide, exposing rotten teeth, gums of the toothless Ghouls shone jaw bones peaking through them, turning the disfigured mouths into makeshift beaks. Suddenly time came rushing back to me, the Gs already in motion were running towards us. "Run!!!" I yelled as I pushed my foot down on the pedal, surging me forward. Rika followed close behind, the trailer slowing her down and forcing more care in maneuvering than in escaping. Our rifles were slung around us, but in the initial fear were forgotten. The Gs burned with hunger and ferocity, they quickly moved between the vehicles, our only saving grace was their inability to slow them selves to properly manage the automotive maze, constantly slamming into and stumbling over cars. The Ghouls howled in rage as we continued to maintain the distance between us and them, the sound caused a shiver to run down my spine. I started to pull away from Rika with out noticing, I continued to pedal, my lungs burned, I could hear the Gs behind me, not wanting to  turn around and see them chasing me I pedaled harder.
    The Zombies closed in on Rika, she was constantly feeling the extra weight of the trailer, only pulling it because she is the better cyclist of the two of us. Tears streamed down her eyes as the sound and smell of the Ghouls grew closer. One Ghoul was close enough to touch the trailer, as it lunged and grasped at Rika, only barely missing it's target. The close call caused Rika to panic and falter in her focus, the bike swerved and crashed into a wrecked car, the vehicle that had apparently created the metal labyrinth. Falling to the ground Rika laid on the floor stunned from the sudden stop and preceding impact with the ground. The Gs grew closer still running, now only a few feet from where an astonish Rika and her bike sat stopped on the pavement.
    The rifle lay in front of her, without much thought she grabbed it, turning to face the threat that was bearing down on her. A cold detached resolve shown in her eyes. 5, A red dot appeared in the Zombies head, his momentum causing him to smash into the wreck car. 4, The crack was barley audible over their screams and made little difference in the G's neck, 3, another hole appeared in it's skull. 2, the eye disintegrate and a the back of it's head shattered outward. 1, a lower jaw shattered and the G stumbled.
     A deafening sound broke out and the Gs jaw-less head exploded. Another shot rang out and the angle of my vantage point allowed me to take multiple Gs with each shot, 2,3,5,6 Gs and my shotgun ran empty, now with they're attention turn towards me, I tried to reload, pulling one round out from my belt before they arrived. Rika was on her feet with a fully reloaded weapon each pull of the trigger finding it's target in the back of a zombies head. Sweat ran down my brow as we reunited, as we hugged the sound of other nearby Gs shouted out, alerted by the gunfire. Rushing towards our bikes we began to pedal away, a warm feeling in my leg nagged me the rest of our ride home.
     Finally able to relax in the safety of our home, I examined my leg... a piece of Zombie skull lay embedded in my leg, a piece of rotten, decaying, and infected bone. My tears were uncontrollable.

Red Sky In Morning

     The outskirts of town were the same as we'd left them, this indirect route back to the apartment costs an additional two hours to our journey. The extra time and distance strained me, I couldn't hardly stand it, we were so close and yet with each turn of the pedal it seemed that we were not getting any closer to our home. I broke down and decided to travel directly towards the apartment, only four miles away.

     The wind was blowing away from us, the breeze felt nice on my sweat soaked brow, rejuvenating us as we road, unfortunately it had another effect. The cars littered the street making travel difficult, and made planning your path through the remains nearly impossible without seeing past the car your next to. We weren't able to see them until we cycled passed.

     Dozen's of Ghouls sat bent in the street hovering over a corpse, they were gnawing on the bare bones of a long dead jogger, parts of her clothes and shoes still sat exposed. The once pink and white running shoes, now just various shades of red, and the spandex pants; Nothing more than a board, soaked and baked in blood and sun. My heart skipped a beat as the Gs began to stir, I hoped with everything that I had, that they would let us pass without notice. They did not.

Last Leg

     Awakening from our restless sleep we roused ourselves and prepare for the long journey still ahead of us. The trailer that we found would make things a lot easier to move along the road, I had nearly fallen from my bike many times on the way here, the Remington weighs so much. I had found an ammo belt for my shotgun and a sling to keep it at the ready. We looked around and tried to secure anything of value, a good knife, fire start, and believe it or not a GPS, I suppose it didn't seem too important at the time every body was hurrying around during the initial chaos.
     We had packed up and were ready to get moving, breakfast was a number of energy bars and some water from self filtered bottles (of course we took a number of them with us too). We moved out of the sporting goods store, and found the street eerily void of Gs. Moving into and through the parking lot we easily found ourselves back on the highway, shortly after starting our ride we found out where all the Gs went to.
     They were swarming around a nearby house, we could see it from the highway, they were forty deep creeping around and trying desperately to enter the house.  On the roof we saw the reasons why they so wanted in. Laying in a shambled pile was a family of four, the blood dripping from the roof and onto the Gs below gave clear indications of the mutual murder and suicide of a despairing family. Crimson Gs fought for position under the red nectar flowing onto them.
     I could barely control my emotions as we stopped to view the horror in front of us. My stomach retched, I could feel the bile filling my throat, swallowing hard I returned my fluids where they belong. Rika was not so lucky, she vomited on the road, her wet sobbing eyes, bulged and reddened as she continued to heave on the ground. I was at a loss for words, I couldn't think of a thing to say that would help her through this, I got off my bike and walked over, huddled with her and we wept together. We couldn't afford to stay long in one place especially this close to the Gs. After a short time and few words of encouragement, we were back on the road, our pace had lessened and our mood sank to a nearly unbelievable low. The next few miles seemed to take years, the time and distance passed in silence.

Pinkie and the Shotgun

Our journey back from Denver was slow moving. It seemed that every couple of miles we would have to stop and take cover. With all of the bags and supplies we had collected from Resef's apartment, we were too encumbered to escape successfully. After what seemed days, we made it back to the half way point at the Centerra shopping center near Loveland. It was a chance to relax and regroup without too much fear of Gs.

There were still a few lingering Gs stumbling around the expansive parking lot. I recognized one Walker from before. She had been a cashier at Victoria's Secret. She wore a torn black blouse exposing a lacy black bra underneath. Her name tag still barely clung to what was left of the blouse. She clunked around on black high heels, her overly expensive tights were littered with holes and tears, the biggest ones on her knees from repeatedly falling. There was something too pathetic about her to put her down. She didn't seem interested in us, anyway.

I went back to the Dick's Sporting Goods where I had found my lucky pink .22 rifle. It had been the only firearm leftover in the chaos. In fact, it had still been sitting on the shelf, totally untouched, when I found it. All of the more powerful firearms had long been looted. I managed to find more ammo for "Pinkie" and Resef's damn shotgun and also found one of those bicycle trailers I used to see parents towing their kids around in. I hadn't see it last time, but wow were we happy to find it this go around! It was perfect for towing all the heavy bags we brought back. We settled into a storage room we had outfitted with pillows from the nearby mattress store. It felt good to get some shuteye.